OITI Steering Committee
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Motivation

OITI Survey of Computer Centers



A. Site Information
  1. Institution Type: (e.g., Academic / Research lab / Industry / Government)
  2. Percentage of computational workload on a fixed schedule: (fixed schedule is, for example, the same jobs every day)
  3. Number of computer users?

    (a) Oceanographic disciplines:

    (b) Total (all disciplines):

B. Current Information Technology Infrastructure (ITI) Resources

  1. Computer hardware: (machine type, number of processors, peak Gflops per processor, total memory in GB, total local disk in GB).
  2. Data archive: (machine type, on-line disk capacity in GB, near-line type and storage capacity in TB, off-line type and storage capacity in TB).
  3. Internal Network: (type, peak data throughput MB/s, actual average data traffic GB/day)
  4. Internet access: (type, peak data throughput MB/s, actual average data traffic GB/day)
  5. Staff levels: Please indicate the number of full time positions and the typical required level of knowledge/expertise in the following areas.

    (a) Management:
    (b) Systems and support:
    (c) Network administration:
    (d) User Services:
    (d) Discipline-specific specialists:
    (e) Other (please specify):

    What coverage (e.g., 24/7, normal working hours, etc.) is provided by this staffing level?
  6. Approximately how many additional staff, and in what areas, would be required to support the addition of the following to your center?

    (a) A single 500-processor scalable system:
    (b) Two hundred new users:
  7. What process do you use for allocating resources to projects?
  8. What is the typical individual project resource allocation (e.g., processor hours), duration of allocation (e.g., per year), number of projects and percentage of your overall allocation in the following categories?

    (a) Large projects:
    (b) Medium projects:
    (c) Small projects:
  9. What are the maximum individual job limits (processors, processor hours, memory, etc.), on your largest computational system, in each of the following categories? What percentage of the overall system workload is in each category?

    (a) High priority large jobs:
    (b) High priority medium jobs:
    (c) High priority small jobs:
    (d) Std. priority large jobs:
    (e) Std. priority medium jobs:
    (f) Std. priority small jobs:
    (g) Low priority large jobs:
    (h) Low priority medium jobs:
    (i) Low priority small jobs:
  10. What percentage of your total computational workload uses the following approaches to scalability?

    (a) None (single processor):
    (b) Shared memory (e.g. OpenMP):
    (c) Message passing (e.g. MPI):
    (d) Remote memory (e.g. SHMEM):
    (e) Dual-level (e.g. OpenMP+MPI):
    (f) Other (please specify):
  11. Percentage of overall usage from oceanography?

    (a) Computation:
    (b) Data Archive:
    (c) Internet Access:
    (d) User Services:
    (e) Discipline-specific specialists:

C. Future ITI Resources

  1. How much more capability do you expect to have in 5 years (e.g., two times present, ten times present, etc.) in the following areas?

    (a) Computation:
    (b) Memory per machine:
    (c) Local disk per machine:
    (d) Data archive on-line capacity:
    (e) Data archive near-line capacity:
    (f) Data archive off-line capacity:
    (g) Internal network throughput:
    (h) Internet throughput:
  2. How much more capability do you expect to have in 10 years (e.g., two times present, ten times present, etc.) in the following areas?

    (a) Computation:
    (b) Memory per machine:
    (c) Local disk per machine:
    (d) Data archive on-line capacity:
    (e) Data archive near-line capacity:
    (f) Data archive off-line capacity:
    (g) Internal network throughput:
    (h) Internet throughput:
  3. What kind of machine architecture do you expect to provide the majority of your compute cycles in (a) 5 years and (b) 10 years?
  4. What emerging hardware, software or networking trends do you expect to impact how your center works in (a) 5 years and (b) 10 years?
  5. As hardware and software evolve, what are some of the major challenges that you anticipate (a) new users and (b) experienced users will encounter in trying to use your center in the future?
  6. Over the next few years, do you anticipate any change in the level or type of help/consulting/training services that you supply to your users?
  7. Do you anticipate dramatic growth in the computational activities of any particular segments of your user community over the next few years? If so, in which areas?
  8. To what extent can the capability of a large computer center be replaced by a geographically distributed network of computer sites over the next 5-10 years?
  9. What are the costs and benefits of centralized vs geographically distributed computer environments over the next 5-10 years?
  10. What are the advantages and disadvantages of co-locating all or part of a computational capability dedicated to oceanography at an existing computer center?